The invention refers generally to presenting information on displays. More particularly, the invention relates to an apparatus and method for presenting information on a computer or electronic display ("computer display") over a network using a word-serial stream that flashes one word on the computer display at a time, along with static structural elements for the information to give the reader contextual information.
There are many different ways of presenting information on a computer display such as those found on a desktop or laptop computer. Conventional methods typically present text information contained within a document in a format consisting of characters forming words, words forming lines, lines forming paragraphs, and paragraphs forming pages (hereinafter referred to as "page format") . The words of a line are typically separated by punctuation such as periods, commas, semi-colons, hyphens, and so on. A reader is led to reading a page of information according to cultural conventions. For example, in the United States the convention is to read a horizontal line of text from left to right across the page, continuing from top to bottom to the next horizontal line of text until the reader reaches the last line of the page. In Asian cultures, the convention is to read vertical lines of text from top to bottom, and continue left across the page to the next vertical line of text until the reader reaches the last line of the page to the left.
The evolution of personal computers created a whole new mechanism for presenting information to a user. The development of high resolution monitors, increased processing speed and memory, and advanced sound boards permitted computers to present information in a multi-media format. Yet despite this evolution, many software designers continue to use the same page format used by more traditional media such as newspapers and magazines, to present information for a user. For example, the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) present information to a user in a modified page format, referred to as a ""webpage"". The "webpage" follows the page format, but contains hypertext links embedded throughout the page which a user can select to move to another portion of the "webpage", move to another "webpage", display a graphic, run an animation sequence, listen to sounds, and so forth.
The use of the page format on computer displays, however, is unsatisfactory in many ways. For one, text information available to the reader is limited by the size of the display. This poses various problems, especially for devices having small displays such as pagers, cellular phones, personal information managers and organizers, fax notebooks, pen computers, palmtops, and the like.
Current generations of such small display devices solve this problem by enlarging the display to accommodate several lines of text. Due to problems of power, economics and ergonomics, it becomes impractical for such device manufacturers to significantly increase display sizes. Thus, a user is left with a very cumbersome means of viewing information, such as scrolling information in blocks of two or three lines. This method is not only inefficient in terms of a user's reading speed, but also an inconvenience to the user due to the amount and types of manipulations required to scroll through the information.
Another problem with the use of the page format on computer displays is that even when the size of the display is reasonably large, such as on a desktop monitor, normal page formatting consumes a relatively large portion of the available viewing area on the screen. For example, with a typical electronic mail reader, a substantial portion of the available computer display is allocated for viewing a document. If a user wants to engage in multi-tasking operations, the user must either re-size the viewing area, in the case of a computer system using a graphics user interface (GUI), or use only one application at a time. Both solutions are inefficient, in that the former increases the difficulty in reading the document, and the latter increases the time necessary for accessing an application to read a document.
An alternative to the page format is the word-serial format, which was originally developed to help readers with narrow visual fields. The word-serial format is a well-known technique of flashing a single word at a time in front of a user. This technique mimics speech in that a listener only hears one word at a time.
The use of the word-serial format on a computer display solves many problems associated with the page format. Since the word-serial format flashes only a single word at a time, a user is capable of reading text information on very small displays such as those found on pagers. Further, the word-serial format improves reading and comprehension rates. When a reader scans a normal page of text, the motion naturally tends to be irregular. This slows down the actual rate at which people are capable of reading with comprehension. By way of contrast, the word-serial format minimizes eye movement thereby increasing reading speed. For example, the word-serial technique can improve an untrained reader's reading rate by a factor of two. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some trained readers have increased their reading rates by one to two orders of magnitude. In addition, since the word-serial format forces the reader to concentrate, the reader's information comprehension rate typically improves as well.
Computer programs for using the word-serial format to display text on a computer display are currently available. These programs are designed to run on a stand-alone computer, such as a personal computer (PC), and are capable of flashing words on a screen at rates of 1500 to 2000 words per minute. Examples of these programs include Vortex, TachyReader, and Rocket Reader.
FIG. 1 is a picture of a computer display used by a representative word-serial format computer program referred to as Vortex. As shown in FIG. 1, Vortex provides a load button 10 for loading a text document into the Vortex reader. A run button 12 initiates Vortex to begin displaying the text document on display 32 by flashing a single word at a time. A stop button 14 stops execution of the Vortex reader, and the back button 16 allows a user to scroll backward through the text document. Font button 18 permits the user to change fonts and font size using scroll bar 20. Buttons 22 and 24 permit the user to select whether the flashed word is displayed on the left hand side of display 32 or centered on display 32, respectively. Scroll bar 28 controls how many words per minute Vortex flashes for the reader, and displays the current words per minute using display 26. Close button 30 exits the program.
Current versions of computer programs capable of presenting text information in word-serial format such as Vortex, however, are unsatisfactory in many ways. For example, conventional programs do not provide any static elements to give a reader contextual information, such as headers and topics. As can be seen from FIG. 1, the only information presented to the reader concerning the content of a document is a single word within the document. The user has no context to help guide the reader in understanding the flashing words, or to quickly move to other portions of the document. Conventional programs are also designed to work with stand alone computers, and are not designed to work in a network environment such as the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW). Moreover, conventional programs are not equipped to handle multi-media information such as animation, images, sounds, figures, and so forth. As can be seen by FIG. 1, Vortex is not designed to present multi-media information associated with a document. Thus, a user would not be capable of browsing a "webpage" using Vortex since there are no accommodations for hyperlinks, images, forms or animation. Further, conventional programs are not designed to follow standard rules of grammar and punctuation, such as pauses after commas, periods or paragraphs. For example, Vortex does not vary the rhythm of the flashing words according to standard punctuation such as periods and commas. Finally, conventional programs such as Vortex are not equipped to display documents stored in a non-uniform format.
A substantial need, therefore, exists for a method and apparatus for presenting information on a computer display over a network which solves the aforementioned problems.